Just because there's no specific company to company competition does not mean NASA wants to take their time. They want it out as soon as, if not sooner than anyone else. What could be better for confirming that our country needs NASA than making an actual faster than light engine? They'd get all the funding they could ever need in a heartbeat.

The issue right now is finding a way to power such an engine, not the engine itself. Once we figure out the power requirements, it should be fairly easy (relatively speaking) to construct the rest of it.

I have no doubt that constructing a warp drive would affirm that NASA is absolutely necessary, and I never questioned whether or not they are useful. I'm just saying that NASA has the tendency to take their time with things, and with all the budget cuts and the way our government doesn't want to do anything productive other than argue, I just don't see this happening anytime soon.

I agree that one of the big hurdles with technology is how to power it, but they seem to have the theory of it down and their recent calculations obviously make this a lot more do-able.

All I'm saying is I wouldn't hold your breath on this happening anytime in the near future, because NASA is slow and they have a lot of work to do to get this off the ground.

we know more about the surface of the moon then we do about our own ocean... less then 1% of the ocean floor has been explored....

to put it quite simply... more then 70% (could be way off, been a lon ass time since i've seen this stat) of the worlds processed gold from before ww2 rests on the bottom of the ocean... and we have found billions of dollars in gold coin in old ship wrecks... means there is billions left to find....

I have no doubt that constructing a warp drive would affirm that NASA is absolutely necessary, and I never questioned whether or not they are useful. I'm just saying that NASA has the tendency to take their time with things, and with all the budget cuts and the way our government doesn't want to do anything productive other than argue, I just don't see this happening anytime soon.

I agree that one of the big hurdles with technology is how to power it, but they seem to have the theory of it down and their recent calculations obviously make this a lot more do-able.

All I'm saying is I wouldn't hold your breath on this happening anytime in the near future, because NASA is slow and they have a lot of work to do to get this off the ground.

They don't take their time because they're lazy, they take their time because it's necessary. They can't afford to mess-up, so they're going to make absolutely sure that they take every precaution and do any amount of tests necessary to make sure they don't fail. A single failure can cost them millions of dollars and set them back a few years at best.

At this point, it's also not just NASA working on this. Theory and applications from many different fields, from many different institutes will contribute. NASA is just being the spearhead on this project, pushing it forward and providing direction for research.

A single failure can cost them millions of dollars and set them back a few years at best.

Or cost people their lives. Remember, NASA has never lost a person in space, I'm sure they're not itching to break that record.

Space Shuttle Challenger... close family friend of mine died on that launch....

Space Shuttle Columbia....

while they may not have died in space itself, NASA has lost lives...

NASA has been seriously lacking in its innovation in the past decade... look at how many success they have had versus failures...

NASA, and the space race, used to be a cause this country was behind... putting a man on the moon, the international space station... the huble telescope... putting robots on mars... NASA needs another "moon landing" to rally this country.... in a time where this country is sick of hearing about gun violence and other political nonsense on the news, we need a victory... NASA could be that organization to give us this victory... and i am not saying its a warp drive but some kind of innovation that makes life better for all human kind... some new technology or some great leap forward in exploration...

To be fair, it's not so much a lack of innovation, it's a lack of money to bring that innovation to practical use in the space program. That's why we were using ageing shuttles built in the 70s until just recently.

Space Shuttle Challenger... close family friend of mine died on that launch....

Space Shuttle Columbia....

while they may not have died in space itself, NASA has lost lives...

NASA has been seriously lacking in its innovation in the past decade... look at how many success they have had versus failures...

NASA, and the space race, used to be a cause this country was behind... putting a man on the moon, the international space station... the huble telescope... putting robots on mars... NASA needs another "moon landing" to rally this country.... in a time where this country is sick of hearing about gun violence and other political nonsense on the news, we need a victory... NASA could be that organization to give us this victory... and i am not saying its a warp drive but some kind of innovation that makes life better for all human kind... some new technology or some great leap forward in exploration...

You forgot Apollo 1. And yes, NASA has lost lives before, but only within Earth's atmosphere, never in space itself, and I'm sure they want to make sure they lose nobody else.

What we need is more coverage. People need to hear what NASA is doing, why they're doing it, what they're gaining from it. Right now, the general consensus is that NASA is spending tons of money for very little return on their investment, because nobody ever hears about what NASA is gaining from all this money they're spending. They just see a ton going out, and nothing coming back. Start showing people what is coming back, start showing people what good their money is doing, and I'm sure they'll start getting behind NASA again.

It is sad that no one gave a shit about Curiosity. I thought it was pretty cool, though. It's just more and more people are in the mindset of "Does it involve me? No? Ok, then I don't give a shit." It's sad.

As far as NASA taking their time, wouldn't this be because they lack the funds to move through the process faster? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but think about it. It's like a little kid playing paintball. He'd go every weekend if he could afford it, but he's lacking in the funds to do so, so he can't.

I dunno, I thought Curiosity got pretty good coverage over the internet. Sites like Reddit blew up about it and its Twitter(yes, it has a twitter) has over a million followers. It may not have got much in terms of TV coverage, but online it seemed to get quite a fair amount of attention.

Also I don't think there's much interest in landing on the Moon again, and it wouldn't be the same as the first Space Race. The next thing would be a planet, but that's a whole different ballfield. And NASA has given back, in so many parts of our daily lives. Just because people are ignorant doesn't mean they haven't done anything: http://en.wikipedia....ff_technologies

I dunno, I thought Curiosity got pretty good coverage over the internet. Sites like Reddit blew up about it and its Twitter(yes, it has a twitter) has over a million followers. It may not have got much in terms of TV coverage, but online it seemed to get quite a fair amount of attention.

Also I don't think there's much interest in landing on the Moon again, and it wouldn't be the same as the first Space Race. The next thing would be a planet, but that's a whole different ballfield. And NASA has given back, in so many parts of our daily lives. Just because people are ignorant doesn't mean they haven't done anything: http://en.wikipedia....ff_technologies

The people with power watch TV news stations, they don't follow online stuff. They let their lackeys do that. We need major television news stations really pushing NASA, and explaining why they're good, what they do, and what kind of return we're getting on their budget, for NASA to become mainstream again.